Children of Azeroth
by silriven
Summary: A reluctant Warchief picks up the pieces left in the wake of Vol'jin's death to keep a fractured Horde from tearing itself apart while an orphan sits on the throne of Stormwind, unaware of the wolves that stalk him from inside the walls. All the while in a secluded desert of Kalimdor, Azeroth bleeds. A retelling of the end of the Fourth War.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

In the early morning, when the sun was just a hint on the horizon and the white dunes reflected the blue light from the night sky, Tanaris was almost bearable. Grizzek inhaled deeply, sucking through the end of a thick cigarette, the hot orange cinders distorting his view of the lightening black sand. The air was cool. The coming dawn put just a hint of thickness on the air. He liked mornings. Mornings were when he could think best, alone, with a clear head.

"Fizzwrench."

Grizzek turned. There was a goblin standing in the doorway that lead into the house from the makeshift porch. He was dressed in a light brown lab coat that was buttoned downed the front, a surgical mask dangling from his neck. His pinched, green-brown face framed by greasy brown hair tied back in a messy bun. The goblin wore a pair of sturdy horned-rimmed glasses that obfuscated his eyes in the late moonlight.

"I finished my report," the goblin said. "About the substance you found."

"Thanks, Newt," Grizzek said, tapping fresh ash from the end of his cigarette, as he reached out to take the simple manilla folder from the other goblin's hand. It was stuffed with documents.

Grizzek opened the cover and began to read, careful to keep the smoldering end of his cigarette away from the dry paper. He was an engineer, not a scientist. His specialty was making things out of materials that already had established properties. This was why he had reached out to a one of the more chemistry-minded Bilgewater exiles that had taken refuge in the southern heel of Kalimdor. Most of the time, Grizzek pretended that the other exiles didn't exist and they didn't try to make friends with him, either. Grizzek was a loner by nature, but they all seemed to be in silent agreement that willful blindness was the best way to avoid attracting the attention of the Trade Prince. It was almost certain that their whereabouts were common knowledge amongst the members of Bilgewater's inner court.

Nothing escaped the attention of the Cartel. Ex-members grouping together and forming bonds would especially invite their attention. It would look like they were forming their own Cartel and there was no such thing as a neutral goblin Cartel. If you weren't with the Bilgewater, you were against them, and making an enemy of the Bilgewater Cartel would bring a whole host of unwanted problems to the already difficult lives they led in the desert. The rest of the Horde, for all their faults, were indifferent to the presence of an independent goblin or twenty tinkering in the wastes. Not that the Horde had much influence beyond the southern border of the Needles, apart from the occasional group of young-blooded adventurers looking to make a name for themselves.

The goblin chemist Newton Oilburn cleared his throat.

"I have a concentrated sample here for you, too," he said.

Grizzek squinted at the vial in Newton's large palm. The substance inside looked more or less the way it had when it was freshly mined, but without the dusty film of dirt and sand. It was a delicate crystal that held two colors: it was both a brilliant gold and the lightest of blues, brighter than the midday sky of Tanaris, almost periwinkle in the morning twilight. The substance glowed with a soft radiance that illuminated the clean glass vial.

"I take it that stuff isn't too dangerous if you're carrying it around in your pocket?" Grizzek asked.

"No," Newton shook his head. "This sample is quite the opposite, if you catch my meaning."

"I don't," Grizzek said, but as soon as his fingers closed around the vial, he did.

The sample emitted a faint organic vibration, like a butterfly was beating its wings against his palm or the sound that came from a cat's throat when it was purring. It was also strangely cool, as if Newton had been storing the sample in a refrigerator. Stranger then that was the third feeling. Grizzek's dominant hand had been crushed in a factory accident when he was just starting out as a war engineer and had never healed properly. The tension and soreness was just another constant pain that Grizzek had tempered himself to ignore over the decades, but under the glimmer of the strange mineral sample, relief washed over the tendons and the ache melted away from the bones. He knew it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't his mind playing tricks on him in a time of stress.

Grizzek shuddered. He almost put the vial down on the crusty surface of the gritty patio table, but before the silky glass could make contact, he snatched back his hand and slipped it into his pocket. He flipped through the pages of the folder and froze when he came to a pair of specification charts, side by side. They were statistically identical.  
Noticing the look on Grizzek's face, Newton leaned over to see which document the engineer was gawking at.

"Oh, yes," Newton said. "The profile matches a rare substance that has only one other recorded appearance."

"The stuff from the kaja'mite mines on Kezan," Grizzek said. His mouth had gone dry. He was starting to sweat.

"The kaja'mite derivative," Newton said. "Exactly."

"You mean to tell me that the same precious shit we thought was lost when the volcano blew in the north is somehow also down here in this armpit of a desert in a whole 'nother hemisphere," Grizzek fumed, running the hand that still pinched his cigarette over his bald scalp.

Grizzek had continued to mine during the entire time Newton was running his experiments. The excavation site was at the bottom of a deep crevice in the rocky mountains to the north that he had stumbled across while spelunking. It started as just a tiny crack that had been exposed after an earthquake. If it wasn't for the glow, it would have never caught his attention. It was soft and irresistible. Also volatile, when prodded in certain ways.

Once he and Newton had ruled out the possibility of it being corrosive or radioactive, his original goal had been to collect as much of it as possible. It was difficult to move the samples, though. His strength wasn't an issue. The strange ambience from the material gave him an almost feverish amount of energy. He would enter the dig site before dawn and exit to find the sky still dark because the sun had crossed the sky and set while he was digging. He wouldn't feel the toll that the work took on his body until he was out of the substance's aura when he retired for the evening. Not only did he need to carry the samples out of a network of caves that went on for miles, but he needed to do so without drawing the curiosity of the locals or the Trade Prince's spies. And the veins themselves ran deep. There was much more of the substance than he had anticipated. The more he dug into the rock, the more of it was exposed. The original cavity was now bathed in the light from the river of exposed crystals. There was no sign of it ending. He couldn't mine it all on his own if he tried.

Grizzek swore. "That must mean these veins run underneath the entire frickin' continent."

"Well, I myself would need a few more data points before drawing that conclusion," Newton stated. "It's possible that this mineral only synthesizes in regions with active volcanos. The tectonic activity could cause the earth to move in ways that transform the minerals in the world's crust. It's just a theory, though, the next step of course would be to make an environmental profile of the region."

Grizzek and Newton fell silent, staring at the documents in Grizzek's hand. Both of them were well aware of the fact that the scope of such a project would be impossible for them.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that if this report hasn't been leaked already, it will be very soon," Newton said.

"You think so?" Grizzek asked, but even he didn't believe his own skepticism.

"Gallywix has a record of every time that you forgot to cover your mouth when you sneezed," Newton said. "And he almost certainly knows about your little cave expedition."

Grizzek nodded, studying the cracks in the cement patio. He had been so careful, too. But it was impossible to hide from the bruisers of the Trade Prince. "Right."

The end of his cigarette had gone out. He fished in his pocket for a lighter. Newton sighed and took out an engraved silver folding box from his coat pocket. He opened it to reveal a number of long, thin cigarettes that smelled of cloves. After Grizzek re-lit his own, he reached out to ignite the fresh cigarette perched in Newton's mouth.

"Thank you. I can't smoke at home anymore," Newton commented, his eyes closed as he inhaled his second drag, savoring the feeling. "And obviously I don't want to risk contaminating the lab."

The moment of peace was disrupted by a loud squawking noise. Newton jumped, knocking over a chair, as something swooped low over the patio and came to rest with unnatural precision.

"Sorry 'bout that," Grizzek said, reaching out to stroke the head of the mechanical parrot. It swiveled its head in response to the touch and cooing noises resonated from the tin voice box. "I gotta tune the motion sensors."

Newton didn't hide the look of disgust on his face as he continued to smoke, staring at the robotic animal.

"I cannot believe you're still holding onto that thing," he said.

"What," Grizzek growled. "It's hella useful out here."

Newton gave him a look that Grizzek could only interpret as pity. He felt his face flush.

"Hey pal, it's none of your business, alright?" Grizzek snapped. "You don't see me marching into your home nit-picking every knick knack you've got."

Newton shook his head and joined Grizzek by the railing, resting his elbows and letting his hands dangle over the side. Smoke trailed from the tips of their cigarettes and into the early morning air. Together, they watched the stars slowly fade.

"Miri's pregnant," Newton said. "We're going to make a run for Un'Goro."

Grizzek didn't like Newton. Nobody liked Newton. Newton had gotten his fancy alchemy skills and accent from spending too much time around a conclave of ex-Dalaran mages back when he was still enlisted in the Horde and stationed in Silverpine Forest. Most irritating of all was the fact that Newton was definitely not the name his mother gave him, which was probably Fizzprick or something. But all the same, Grizzek's heart sank at the thought of never seeing his arrogant face or his weird wife around Gadgetzan ever again.

"She still, uh, writing her math thing?" Grizzek asked.

"Oh, yes," Newton said. "Even if she may never work out that proof she set out to solve originally, she's discovered a lot of brilliant things along the way."

"Uh-huh," Grizzek said.

"We'll send you a copy when it's finished."

"Thanks."

Grizzek's voice was hollow. It was an insincere offer. Newton himself seemed to realize the odds that they would still be able to communicate by the time the Bilgewater caught up to him were low.

"Do you want to join us?" Newton asked. Grizzek knew it was only a courtesy.

"Nah."

Newton nodded and snuffed his cigarette out in the ashtray Grizzek kept on the patio table, carefully dusting off the extra ash and tucking what was left back into his silver case.

"Hey, Newt," Grizzek said. "You should take some of that kaja-whatever. For the kid."

Newton smirked. He opened his leather satchel and tilted it towards Grizzek, revealing a series of carefully wrapped bundles nestled on top. The parcels gave off a faint but unmistakable golden blue light. Grizzek threw back his head and laughed.

"You son of a bitch," Grizzek barked, baring his yellow teeth. "Get the hell outta my workshop."

Newton nodded, buckling the leather flap securely in place. "Take care of yourself, Fizzwrench."

Under the watchful eyes of the parrot and sixteen other cameras embedded in the rocks around the beach, Newton left. Grizzek finished his cigarette, picked up the folder, and went inside to pour himself a mug of lukewarm leftover coffee from the pot he had brewed the previous night. He sat down at his kitchen table with a pencil and notepad and started to read.

In his pocket, the precious sky gold sample continued to hum in resonance with the incomprehensible miles of veins that had begun to bleed underneath the planet's surface.


	2. Part I, Chapter 1 - Vol'jin's Chosen

**o**

**Children of Azeroth**

**Part 1 **

**Tears of the Titan**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Vol'jin's Chosen**

Lor'themar Theron, Regent Lord of Quel'Thalas, sat cross-legged upon a silk cushion in a makeshift tent outside the maw of Grommash Hold in the Horde capitol city of Orgrimmar. He was accompanied by several of his own rangers, a handful of shal'dorei warriors, two orc mages, and a troll high priest, all sprawled out among the pillows and furs. The sin'dorei were renowned for their ability to transform even the most desolate stretch of desert into a lavish campsite. The small rocky hill that Lor'themar had claimed in the Valley of Strength was no different. Elven cooks had conjured trays piled with delicate slices of spiced boar meat and strips of sweetened cactus fruit. They offered pieces to share with any curious orc, tauren, forsaken, or troll who passed by. A hookah was sitting in the center of the pillows with a sweet floral hash smoldering in its crystal belly, though no one was smoking.

Lor'themar had instructed that the tent be positioned such that he could have a direct view of the Hold's cavernous doorway. He wanted to see every body that came or left through that door. The most notable visitors to the Hold were the never-ending parade of shamans who would come out bearing bundle after bundle of blood-soaked, green-tinged bandages that needed to be purified. As the sun went down, it became difficult to see. One by one, the torches around the Valley of Strength were lit, spilling long, dark shadows across the gravel.

It felt as if the entire Horde had assembled, from every corner of Kalimdor and the farthest shores of the Eastern Kingdoms. Lor'themar could not recall ever seeing Orgrimmar so crowded. Perhaps it was simply the citizen's inability to gracefully handle having to care for so many wounded from the assault on the Broken Shore. Funeral pyres lined the dusty road from the massive front gate all the way south through the canyon and to Razor Hill.

An unmistakable silhouette lumbered out of the hold. The feathered head swung around, surveying the crowd, and came to rest on the blood elf's enclave. On heavy hooves, Baine Bloodhoof lumbered to the tent. Lor'themar bowed his head as Baine ducked inside the tent. Since they had folded themselves into the Horde's army, the sin'dorei had prided themselves in their ability to adjust their delicate equipment to accommodate the heft of their bulkier comrades. The tauren leader had no difficulty standing before the Regent Lord beneath the violet canopy.

"What news, Awaihilo?" Lor'themar asked.

Baine shook his head, rustling the long polished bones that hung from his headdress.

"The Warchief has asked the faction leaders to assemble," he said "Our presence is requested as soon as possible."

Lor'themar rose to his feet, brushing the wrinkles from his tunic. A ranger helped him into his red leather and gold-plaited armor.

"How is he?" Lor'themar asked as he buckled his pauldrons into place.

Baine hesitated.

"I cannot say," the tauren said. He seemed to be chewing on his words. "I am not blessed in the healing arts."

Lor'themar somewhat doubted that the seasons Baine had spent had not given him an intuition for death, but out of respect, he nodded in acknowledgement. The Tauren were not known to be prideful when it came to judging when and where the Earthmother took her children back into the earth.

"I also came to ask if you had seen Windrunner," Baine said. "No one has seen her for hours."

Almost as if on cue, Lor'themar felt a prickling on the back of his neck. They were being watched. He turned his head and met a pair of red eyes staring at him from the shadows of the Broken Tusk's porch. Nathanos Blightcaller was sitting on the edge, bracing his crossbow on his lap with one hand and running a greasy polishing rag over its surface with the other. He was staring at them.

"I will see to it that she is collected," Lor'themar said.

* * *

An arrow hissed through the warm night air, coming to rest in the thick skin of a cactus several yards away from the bow it launched from. Sylvanas briskly crossed the distance between her launch spot and the plant. With a swift almost mechanical motion, she wrenched the arrow from the cactus flesh, leaving behind a divot that began to bleed sticky juice. The cactus was peppered with many of these holes. Broken bits of cactus arm littered the surrounding area from where previous blows had ripped them clean off. Sylvanas returned to her original position, nocked the arrow, and fired again.

Orgrimmar stood somewhere to her north. There was nowhere in Durotar she could go to escape the smell of smoke from the funeral pyres or the sight of a strange blue-green tint on the horizon from the strange, bitter herbs that the trolls were burning to keep away the Loa of Death. It was not just a desire to mourn for those that had died on the Broken Shore that drove so many of the Horde to Orgrimmar. It was that the news had spread, despite their best efforts. They had whisked him away into Grommash Hold as quickly as possible and tried to downplay the severity of the damage, but there were many on board the airship during their long retreat back to Bladefist Bay. They heard his deep cries of pain as the shamans extracted the poisoned iron blade from his torso. They knew. Everyone knew.

Vol'jin was dying.

Her own people were not as shaken by the rumors. The Forsaken lacked a personal connection to the Warchief, but they were uneasy at the looming threat of loosing yet another prominent member of the Horde. Kalimdor was still rebuilding from the physical and emotional turmoil caused by Garrosh Hellscream's stint as Warchief. Her people were sheltered from the heat of the Horde's politics by the cool silver canopy of the plague-misted forests in the Eastern Kingdoms. In return, they traded a closer proximity to their enemies. Their sin'dorei allies in Silvermoon City at least stood at their shoulder. They had come far from those early years when they were alone and more vulnerable to the sons of Arugal that stalked the woods.

"My lady."

Sylvanas had heard Nathanos' footsteps long before he stepped from the canyon shadows. Her eyes remained focus down the arrow nocked in her bow.

"The Warchief requests your presence in Grommash Hold," Nathanos said.

A loud whistle tore through the night air as Sylvanas let loose one final arrow. It connected with the waxy cactus skin and another arm tore off with a loud snap.

"How is he?" Sylvanas asked as she made her last trip to retrieve the arrow from a piece of cactus flesh.

"I cannot say for sure, my lady," Nathanos said. "There are too many rumors. There is no single source of truth."

Sylvanas lifted her arrow, examining the sheen of plant juice that coated the bone tip and oakwood shaft. "What do your eyes tell you?"

Nathanos inclined his head. "My eyes have seen a caravan of shamans and priests enter and leave the keep where he is resting. They enter bearing freshly blessed totems and bottles of salves. They leave with burdens of blood soaked bandages."

Sylvanas cleaned the arrow with a rag from her saddlebag. She shook her head as she sheathed it in her quiver.

"He should not have been out in the battlefield," she said. "The king of Stormwind would not have been so reckless."

"The king of Stormwind would not have been so brave," Nathanos scoffed. His voice softened. "Could you have let your own people step onto such a battlefield without you?"

Sylvanas shook her head. "No. I could not."

She looked up at the starry sky. The milky expanse of stars that marked the edge of the galaxy stretched out in a clean arc over the desert horizon. It was a beautiful night.

"Let us return to Orgrimmar," she said.

* * *

Sylvanas entered Grommash Hold alone. The other leaders of the Horde had already assembled, she was the last. She had expected to slip in, barely noticed, and to listen to the Warchief's address from the shadows. To her horror, everyone in the Hold turned to look at her. Baine, a pair of Tauren druids, Gallywix, shaman healers, Saurfang, Darkspear troll priests, Lor'themar, a sea of orc guards. Not only did they stare but they parted before her, clearing a path to the wooden throne draped in leather skins and dragon teeth. There, incredibly, Vol'jin sat, more or less upright. He was staring directly at her with his one good eye.

Sylvanas briefly caught eyes with Lor'themar. He looked frightened at first glance. He calmed his expression and gave her a nod, inclining his head towards their Warchief. She hesitated.

"Windrunner," the Warchief rasped, beckoning with a long, bony finger. "Come forward."

Sylvanas realized that she was meant to approach the throne. She walked as if an invisible hand guided her steps. Then, the stench hit her. Incense had been lit in the twin fires that illuminated the Warchief's seat, but did nothing to hide the thick stink of sulfuric fel poison and singed, clotted blood. The familiar scent of rotting flesh flooded the alcove. She knew then that Vol'jin's wound was not healing.

Sylvanas maintained eye contact with the Shadow Hunter's one-eyed glare.

"Warchief," she greeted him.

Vol'jin could barely breathe.

"The Loa spirits say death will claim me soon," he said.

Sylvanas couldn't help but glance at the fresh bandages wound tightly around his torso. She could see the bloodstain growing before her eyes. Behind the linen, a sickly green fire burned. His skin was falling apart, a network of cracks and tears radiated across his body from the center of the wound. It had to have been painful. She could not believe that Vol'jin had lasted this long with such a wound eating away at his flesh. She had to tear her eyes away.

"In the end," she found herself saying. "Death claims us all."

She swallowed the fear she felt then, thinking of her own death and the empty abyss that awaited her. The precipice that the fate of the entire Horde now stood upon. She tried to focus her thoughts on the here and the now. She could not afford to let her concern show in front of such a gathering.

"But the Horde will live on," she said. She forced her voice to be firm, resolute.

A jagged noise rose in Vol'jin's throat. The troll was laughing. She could no longer ignore the blatant look of hatred on his face. It stung. Vol'jin was not a creature of spite and until then she had not thought their relationship to be any worse than that she had with the rest of the Horde. Why had he decided to waste what could be his last, dying breaths on mocking her in the front of this crowd of their peers?

"I have never trusted you," he growled. His breaths were increasingly labored, his chest visibly heaving in the firelight. "Nor would I have ever imagined in our darkest time that you would be the one to save us."

He was referring to her actions on the black beach, when she had lead the retreat from the Broken Shore. She wanted to say that she had only done what needed to be done to ensure the survival. Had she hesitated, surely Lor'themar or Baine would have picked up the lead in her stead. It was only by pure luck that she had just happened to be the one standing closest to the Warchief when he fell. But she bit back her words. Vol'jin was reaching for the thick, white smoke wafting from the right-hand burner.

"The spirits have granted me clarity," he rumbled. "A vision. They whisper a name. Many will not understand. But you must step out of the shadows and lead."

Up until that point, Sylvanas had been sure that Vol'jin was partially delirious. He was slipping away. But as he spoke this last sentence, he turned to meet her eyes once more. In his gaze, she was certain that he was mortally lucid.

"You must be Warchief."

A cold hand tightened its grip around what was left of Sylvanas' heart as she heard her Warchief's last command and watched the light leave his eyes. Vol'jin's body went slack, the last of his strength finally giving away. The fel fire in his wounds, at last, abated. Sylvanas could not speak. She could not move.

A wail rose from the throat of a Darkspear priestesses. All at once, the rest of the trolls followed her lead, and Grommash Hold was filled with the sound of their keening. It made gooseflesh prickle along what skin remained on the Banshee Queen's arms. The noise must have been heard by the mourners assembled outside as more voices rose to join them. Underneath, she heard Baine utter the first few verses of what must have been a shu'halo prayer. Then, Lor'themar raised his voice to sing a familiar, old sin'dorei lament.

A stretcher was brought to the base of the throne. Lor'themar put a hand briefly on her elbow as he passed on his way to help with the body. Together, the remaining leaders of the Horde, save for her, carried the former Warchief's body from Grommash Hold, lead by a parade of weeping troll death wailers.

Sylvanas was left alone.

She did not know how long she stayed there. Eventually, Nathanos entered the chamber. He found her kneeling at the foot of the great chair, hands cupped in her lap and eyes fixed on the empty space where Vol'jin had passed away. She felt his touch on her shoulder.

"My lady," he said.

She reached up and grasped his hand. She felt him flinch in surprise, then recover and his fingers wrapped around hers.

"...are you all right?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes," she said. She rose to her feet.

"They've carried the body to the Valley of Spirits," Nathanos said. "I've been told that the Darkspear wish to prepare the body, they have some kind of death rites to perform. Saurfang is directing a group of orc grunts to construct the funeral pyre outside of the main gate for when they are ready."

Sylvanas nodded. "I must speak with Saurfang. I will be expected to...say something..."

Even now, with only Nathanos there to listen with his patience and understanding, words failed her. She did not know how to comfort grieving trolls and orcs. But this was how it must be, and would be, for as long as she remained in the Horde. The Hold at once seemed too small. The smell of incense, leather and bile was overpowering and made her head spin. Sylvanas raised a hand and gestured for Nathanos to follow her as she made her way to the exit, where she hoped for the sweet smell of fresh air.

When she turned the corner to, she stopped. It seemed that all of Orgrimmar had joined the melancholy wails of the Darkspear, if not with cries then with roars and bellows. Only in battle had she heard the Horde in such a maddening furor. But there, right outside Grommash Hold, a large, quiet crowd of Forsaken had assembled. Their sunken faces were all turned towards her, skin pallid and yellow under the flickering torchlight. Two standard bearers held her colors high, the crest with raven under the broken face flying over those assembled.

Grand Executor Mortuus, standing in the front, raised his hand. In unison, they all lifted their hands to their hearts and bowed.

"For our Warchief," Mortuus said. "For the Dark Lady."

The echo was returned, each individual voice soft, but joined together their voices were strong.

"For the Dark Lady."

Sylvanas went into the crowd. Now was not the time for cheering, but still her people expressed their quiet joy in their own way as they reached for her, whispering her name and words of gratitude. She returned their touch, clasping every hand that extended towards her. She let them brush her arms and the feathers on her shoulders. Some picked up the hem of her cloak to carry it behind her as she walked.

When she reached the other end of the throng, she turned and raised her hands.

"I ask for volunteers to come with me to help the orcs build Vol'jin's funeral pyre," she said.

Everyone present raised their hands in salute. An apothecary in the front spoke.

"We are with you, my Lady."


End file.
